DescriptionThe Port Authority of New York/New Jersey (PANYNJ) has recently been experiencing a wide range of service lives with their asphalt runways. In particular, PANYNJ are noting pavement lives ranging from 3 to 15+ years, with major distress observed being top down cracking. To help explain the varied degree of fatigue cracking performance, a research study was undertaken to evaluate six different asphalt runways of different fatigue cracking lives. Airfield cores from PANYNJ were supplied to the Rutgers Asphalt Pavement Laboratory (RAPL) for forensic study. Six runways were cored to evaluate the asphalt binder cracking properties of the different mixtures placed. Each runway resulted in varying degrees of fatigue cracking performance. Therefore, an extensive study was conducted to determine what asphalt binder correlated best to the field performance. Laboratory binder testing showed that both the Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR) ∆Tc and Double Edge Notched Tension (DENT) Critical Opening Displacement (CTOD) properties correlated to field observations. The Glover-Rowe parameters provided reasonable comparisons to the observed field performance. However, the results from the Linear Amplitude Sweep Test (LAS) conflicted with intermediate PG grade in terms of field observations. Further binder testing showed that “fatigue” properties of extracted and recovered asphalt binders improved with depth and appears to have little aging at depth greater than 1 inch. The testing program indicated that binder tests were capable of capturing the differences in the observed field performance. Furthermore, the research study refined laboratory PAV conditioning to match field aging, and also proposed test parameters thresholds to be used as asphalt binder purchase “PG-Plus” specification for airfield asphalt pavements.